We've blogged before about how exciting it is to see the evolution of gestural interfaces. Instead of users having to click a mouse, or touch a screen, they simply wave their arms and their gesture is interpreted thus changing or manipulating the content on screen.

Our own Webby Honoree work, the Suite Spot, was our first public experiment in "Minority Report" style gestural interfaces. It was enormously successful and people actually volunteered "Wow, it's just like Minority Report!". But that was a couple of years ago - technology has got even better.

Rex's 2007 trip to SIGGRAPH revealed amazing new interfacing technology that recognised gestures and turned your bare hands into game controllers - no need for any devices. We reported on it at the time, but now this is coming mainstream. In the latest Xbox version being launched later this year you can do everything (in terms of interaction) with nothing. Facial recognition, voice recognition, gestures and even scanning your own images (yourself, your skateboard, etc) make the gaming and entertainment experience completely natural, and personalised.

There's an explanation here, but this video (albeit quite salesy) is a great demonstration of the possibilities - you just have to put up with the American layer of cheese. 

It's a trend we've spoken about many times, and one we will be keeping a close eye on. We're working on a facial recognition/gestural experiment at the moment because we can see this technology is going to become part of the consumer's everyday life. That means in stores, museums, tourism attractions and public spaces they will start to expect this type of interactivity. If I can do it at home, I expect it (only even better) in other places.

It's yet another example where interactivity is quickly being re-defined, and where the audience is fast getting ahead of the people commissioning this work. Watch out or you'll be left behind by very crowd you're trying to reach.